Due to personal, family, and cultural histories, some people are inherently terrified of most things.

The fear of the world usually manifests as fear and hatred of new things. They rarely admit to this fear (especially the men), but they show it in their actions of carrying a gun everywhere or thinking that if they don't cheat others first, they will be cheated.

This fear actually proceeds from an even deeper impulse, the belief that quick judgment thinking (what I call memetic epistemology) is superior to extrinsic thinking.

They trust their instincts more than any other person, regardless of their expertise.

Conservatives and reactionaries believe that their views are true because 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 believe them. Evidence isn't needed for "common sense."

This viewpoint is the fundamental unifier of everyone on the right, from atheist ancaps to Christofascists.

Memetic epistemology isn't inherently bad. It is in fact how we experience love, art, music, faith, and maintain coherence in adversity.

But the self-focused, somatic nature of memetic thinking means that it can be dangerous when applied to the world at large.

Society has become so large and so complex that one person can no longer have total mastery of even two fields of knowledge.

The paradox of modernity is that each advance in knowledge also creates ignorance, in two major ways.

The first is that knowing more things also increases the number of known unknowns. Our models of reality are not reality itself. Scientific laws are descriptions of physical obligation, rather than the obligations themselves.

When we describe a thing via a model, the model itself becomes a source of doubt, because no model can explain obligations perfectly.

This extrinsic epistemic approach has made modern humans able to advance through science in ways that would appear godlike to any ancient person.

But this new way of thinking is knowing through negation. And it's not how humans did things for the entire history of our species. It's "unnatural."

plus.flux.community/p/robert-k…

Robert Kennedy’s bizarre obsession with ‘natural’ isn’t going to make Americans healthier

Historian of fitness Natalia Mehlman Petrzela on why an obese president has a health secretary who moralizes about wellness

^{Matthew Sheffield (Flux)}

Cumulative advances in knowledge are threatening to people who only want to use somatic reasoning and who respond to all new things memetically. They want to imitate authorities rather than have humility and accept extrinsic realities through abstraction.

This is the conservative epistemology. And it's inherently pre-political. There are many conservatives who are not Republicans or Tories, etc. plus.flux.community/p/the-scie…

The science behind why Donald Trump loves the ‘poorly educated’

Sociologist Darren Sherkat discusses how right-wing social viewpoints seem to inhibit cognitive development

^{Matthew Sheffield (Flux)}

Besides piling up all kinds of newfangled things, expansions in knowledge also can liberate people from social prejudices.

For centuries, women and other ethnic groups were not "fully human." Homosexuality & trans people weren't "real."

These bigotries are the product of what's often called the "problem of other minds."

Because cognition is inherently private, & language is an only a very partial extrusion of thought, we can't know for sure that other minds are real. plus.flux.community/p/renee-go…

Renee Good and the problem of other minds

Watch now (80 mins) | A recording from Matthew Sheffield and Virginia Heffernan's live video

^{Matthew Sheffield (Flux)}

Liberalism originated as #philosophy that said all minds are equal, that no one has inherent superiority, and that anyone can be wrong. This is ultimately why right-wing people hate it so much.

But the problem of other minds also extends to institutions made by other minds.

During the Great Depression and after World War II, the United States and many other countries built governmental and international institutions to alleviate poverty and resolve disputes.

These institutions and the global order they created were very far from perfect, but they were much better than what existed before.

Unfortunately, their creators didn't realize that they needed to continue to advocate for institutions and to always reform them to help more.

People are sometimes surprised that Trump and other reactionary politicians don't have consistent policies.

They shouldn't be. Reactionaries hate abstract systems and coherence. They don't understand NATO, USAID, public broadcasting, literature, or science. So these things must be destroyed.

Government as the ultimate mutual aid, cooperation, consent, and sexual autonomy are concepts that don't make sense in a worldview where only the strong survive.

#Science and democracy need each other, and it's also no coincidence that reactionaries hate both. This is why Trump and his band of totalitarians have been de-funding them and attacking them.

Much more on how and why here: plus.flux.community/p/science-…

Science is under attack because it left the public behind

NIH scientists Mark Histed and Jenna Norton discuss the deep connection between democratic principles and scientific progress

^{Matthew Sheffield (Flux)}

Science, democracy, and art all go together. And so does sexual freedom. They're all ways of knowing ourselves.

We've known these truths among ourselves, but we have not talked about them nearly enough to the broader public.

That must change. plus.flux.community/p/the-righ…

The right-wing wars on science and sex are linked

New Moon Network founder Savannah Sly on the radical right’s attack on self-knowledge and autonomy

^{Matthew Sheffield (Flux)}

I'll be publishing a lot more on how cognitive science and philosophy apply to politics so please follow if this is of interest to you. Also please follow @discoverflux

I could sure use your help boosting the first post of this thread as well. Thank you!

/end

@discoverflux Very good thread. There’s a saying that goes in the same vein:

”The fascist loves the boot that’s trampling their face.” They love the boot, because it relieves them from needing to think about anything else.

And I personally think there’s some perverse erotic excitement they get from being trampled by the boot, because commanding them how to think actually makes their little insecure minds feel better.. 🤦‍♂️

Yes, MAGA is also a sexual fetish. I've done two podcast episodes of note in that regard: plus.flux.community/p/maga-has…

plus.flux.community/p/how-gay-…

How gay Republicans helped build a political party that hates LGBT people

Author Neil J. Young discusses his new book ‘Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right’

^{Matthew Sheffield (Flux)}